


Shrunk in the Wash

by Lauralot



Series: Daddy Issues [14]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7451800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets deserumed.</p><p>James doesn't take it well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shrunk in the Wash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluandorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluandorange/gifts).



“That’s not Daddy!”

James hides his face against Bucky’s shoulder, tugging on his sleeves like they’re the reins of a horse, but Bucky doesn’t stop walking. He just bounces James a little and rubs his back.

“That’s Daddy,” Bucky says. James can feel the words rumble in Bucky’s chest. “I promise, bug. Don’t worry.”

James turns his head, peeking with one eye at the man on Daddy’s couch. He turns away just as quickly, squeezing tight on Bucky’s arms. “No!”

The man has blond hair and blue eyes like Daddy, but that’s it. He’s way, way too small, closer to Natasha’s height than Daddy’s. Natasha’s much bigger than James, but even she always has to look up to meet Daddy’s eyes. And the man isn’t just too short. He’s _skinny_ , so skinny he almost looks sick. His face is kind of like Daddy’s, but it’s too small. It reminds James of when Clint did the laundry wrong and his shirt shrank so much that Bucky Bear could wear it. But people can’t shrink in the wash.

And Winter’s hovering around the man like he expects him to break in half. Winter never looks at Daddy that way. Nothing can hurt Daddy. Never ever. So that man’s not him.

“It’s okay, James.”

That’s Daddy’s voice.

James stares. Bucky’s settling down on the couch now, right next to the strange man. He sounds like Daddy and he smells like Daddy, but it looks like James could bruise him just from hugging too hard. It _can’t_ be Daddy.

“It’s me,” the man says. “Don’t worry, lamb. We’re gonna fix this soon, I promise.”

“Daddy?” James whispers.

The man nods.

“What _happened_?” His voice comes out shaky. Daddy looks like the old pictures from before he became Captain America, only not in black and white. What if they’re all going back in time and Daddy’s just faster than everyone else? What if James stops existing?

“Hey,” Daddy says. He’s reaching out to hold James’s hands but his own hands are all _wrong._ “Don’t worry.”

It’s Bucky who answers. “The bad guys had a special weapon that reversed the effects of the serum. But Tony’s got the weapon now, and he’s finding a way to fix it. Promise.”

“I’m still me,” Daddy says. “I know I don’t look the same, but I will again soon. It’s all right, we can still do all the things we usually do.”

He holds out his hand again. This time, James reaches out to take it, but before they can touch, Winter starts scrubbing at James’s hand with a wet wipe.

*

James has to be really careful now.

Winter says that Daddy’s “immuno-compromised” without the serum. He used to get sick all the time, and now he can get sick again if they’re not careful. What’s more, he hasn’t had any vaccinations against diseases because he didn’t need them when he was Captain America, and now he can’t have them because his body isn’t healthy enough to handle it.

James is so glad that it’s summer. Winter says children are full of diseases, and James would hate himself forever if he brought home something from school that hurt Daddy.

On the day Daddy came home from the mission all small, Winter did a lot of research on the Internet and came up with a really good idea. He said that he found some information about a boy in the seventies who was born without an immune system, and the hospital built these special plastic rooms for him with sterilized air and everything, so nothing could hurt him. He even had a TV, and his parents could touch him through the walls with special gloves. Winter wanted to do the same thing with Daddy. He said Jarvis could monitor the quality of the air.

But Daddy just laughed at him. “I’m not on my deathbed,” he’d said. “Calm down. Medicine’s a lot better now than it was in the forties, Winter.”

So now Winter says it’s up to them to keep Daddy safe.

He gives James a bottle of hand sanitizer and tells him to use it every time he touches Daddy. Winter also sprayed everything with Lysol, except that made Daddy cough and have to use the inhaler Tony gave him, so now Winter scrubs stuff with Clorox instead. James tries to take a shower before every time he sees Daddy, blow-drying his hair so he won’t drip water everywhere and maybe give Daddy a cold. It makes his hair a big fluffy mess, but that makes Daddy laugh, so James figures it’s okay.

He also takes some big Ziploc bags from the kitchen and sticks his clothes inside right when they come out of the dryer so that they can’t get any germs on them inside his drawer. The bears can’t get scrubbed with bleach because it’ll mess up their fur, so James sprays them with the Lysol and leaves them to air out on a clean countertop before he takes them anywhere. He hasn’t taken Captain Ameribear to see Daddy yet. He doesn’t want to make Daddy feel bad.

The problem is, no matter how careful James is being, nobody else seems to understand how serious things are. Bucky just laughs and tells Winter that Daddy survived back in the days before hand sanitizer existed. And the Commander thinks it’s _funny_ that Daddy’s small now. He picked Daddy up and threw him over his shoulder, and when Daddy kicked him, the Commander just laughed. He could have given Daddy an asthma attack and he didn’t even _care._

On the fourth day of Daddy being tiny and breakable, Clint comes to the Commander’s floor where Daddy is, and he brings Lucky.

That’s when James starts sobbing because he knows the last time Lucky had a bath because Clint let him help and Lucky’s dirty and his paws have been all over the pavement outside and James really likes Lucky but Lucky’s _dangerous_ right now and has all kinds of germs.

It takes Daddy fifteen minutes to calm James down and get him to say what’s wrong. And then Daddy _glares_ at Winter, like he doesn’t even like him anymore, and he makes Winter go to the Commander’s bedroom to talk privately. Except it’s not really private because Bucky and the Commander come too.

Daddy tells James to stay with Clint. James just sits on the floor while Lucky pants and wags his tail beside him. James still isn’t sure if it’s safe to touch Lucky.

“It’s all good, James,” Clint says. “Tony’s almost got it all figured out how to make your dad a demigod again.”

James isn’t sure what demigod means. He fidgets on the couch. “Clint?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“There’s some frozen fruit in the Co—in Brock’s freezer.” He’s not supposed to say the Commander anymore, but it’s hard. “Can I have a smoothie?”

“Sure thing.” Clint stands up and almost trips over his shoelace. “I make the _best_ smoothies, James. You’re gonna love it.”

While Clint’s struggling with the blender, James sneaks away and presses his ear against the Commander’s door.

“—not going to spend my life in a bubble to ease your peace of mind,” Daddy’s saying. He sounds angry and out of breath. “And to drag James into it? We’re trying to give him a normal childhood! He can’t have that if he thinks I’m on the edge of death!”

When Winter speaks, his voice is low and firm. “Bucky told me to care for you.”

“Whoa. Back up,” Bucky protests. “I said ‘make sure the stubborn punk doesn’t overexert himself.’ I never said to quarantine him!”

“I have studied Steve’s medical records and—”

“Is it just coded into your genes to be overprotective idiots?” Daddy demands. James flinches against the door. “I survived for twenty-five years in this body back before inhalers were even portable, damn it. I can handle a few days in it now.”

Nobody talks for a long time. Maybe they’ve made him so mad that Daddy doesn’t love any of them anymore.

“We want you to be safe,” Winter says finally. His voice is quiet.

“I know that.” Daddy sounds tired now. His breathing isn’t so raspy. “Look, if you really want to look out for me, just...promise me you’ll protect James. If something happens here, don’t worry about me. That’s the one thing I can’t do now. I can’t keep him safe like this.”

It’s quiet again.

“Okay,” the Commander says. “We’ll watch out for the kid.”

James can hear Bucky and Winter murmur in agreement.

Then he hears a big splash in the kitchen. Lucky barks and Clint says, “Aw, blender, _no._ “

James dashes back to the living room before the other grown-ups can come investigate.

*

James rests his head against Daddy’s chest. For a minute, it’s really weird, feeling ribs instead of the solid, thick body he’s used to, but then Daddy starts reading and he sounds like he always does. James just closes his eyes and listens to Daddy’s voice a second before he opens them again so he can see the pictures.

“Bucky Bear needs another story,” he says as soon as Daddy reaches the end. Daddy hasn’t picked James up once since he got small because James has been too scared to ask. What if Daddy can’t lift him anymore and that hurts Daddy’s feelings?

But now Daddy’s sitting on the bed next to James, and he can hold him like this. That’s almost as good as being held, and James intends to keep Daddy here as long as he possibly can.

“He wants Thumbelina,” James says.

Daddy calls Bucky Bear a punk, but he laughs and hugs them both when he says it. And big or little, Daddy’s hugs are still the best hugs in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> The boy in the plastic bubble that Winter refers to was [David Vetter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vetter), who was born in 1971. He had severe combined immunodeficiency, which made him extremely susceptible to infections and pathogens. He lived in sterile chambers at a hospital and at his family home, occasionally venturing out of the chamber in a special suit designed by NASA, until his death in 1984.


End file.
